[arch-releng] A question regarding the rewrite of the installer and other things...

[Dieter Plaetinck]

On Mon, 16 Mar 2009 19:15:30 -0700
Keith Hinton <keithint1234 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
> I've really enjoied the current Arch setup. I've only started using
> the Arch CDs in the last few weeks due to Chris Brannon's efforts to
> produce an accessible talking boot iso for those who are blind or
> visually impaired like myself.
> This is largely what has been driving me away from Arch CDs.
> First, I had a suggestion for the release-engineering project.
> Accessibility is extremely chriticle for users that are completely
> blind. I know that Chris and Arron have been in discussion about
> producing accessible Arch Isos before (his Isos are just remastered
> iso images containing several extra packages) like Alsa-utils.
> Speakup, (a Linux screen access program that provides the possibility
> of speech-output, for the console, of course, and a few others.
> Has anyone in the Arch-release project taken a close look at this
> stuff?
> 
Yes we are interested in this.  I know there was a thread about this
(probably Chris' first announcement) but I couldn't find it
back.
I personally didn't have time to look at it yet.

> aif
> What is Aif exactly?
> The other question is, what is wrong with the current installation
> process? 
Aif improves over archlinux-installer in a few ways:
1) make libraries of backend logic instead of spaghetticode
2) this follows 1): ability to easily create different installation
scripts/methods (interactive, automatic, ...). both from a user and
developer perspective.
3) various bugfixes and improvements


> And for the final question, (I know bugs are fixed in your
> latest media) but what happens if you can't aford to purchase Cds all
> the time etc to burn Isos too? If you're just going to use the FTP
> iso, (not the core) is it necessary to still obtain latest media? I'm
> curious if there are any severe consequences for not doing this in
> particular? I assume that there must be, otherwise you wouldn't have
> mentioned grabbing this stuff in the official and beginner guides for
> the Arch installation process.
> I'm simply an Arch Linux user, I'm no developer, but thought I'd be
> free to at least ask my questions. Thanks much!

Depends on what you want to do.  If you are talking about bringing your
system up to date: you can keep any arch system up to date with 'pacman
-Syu', no need to download new cd's.


> Regards, --Keith

Dieter